When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Microsoft promised a better Windows 11. Microsoft has delivered the Windows 11 26H2 Update to the masses. We issue a report card on how it's lived up to its promises. This was supposed to be the year Microsoft fixed Windows 11.

Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Look Up Mashable Selects Creator Playbook In My Bag Say More Trending Now Back to School Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net All Series Apple's new Watch Ultra 4 lays down a good foundation for features that are, mostly, yet to come. Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car.

How September's Pixel Drop changes the way you call and message important contacts The update lets you contact VIPs with a tap and adds scam protection. Artie Beaty is a freelance writer, based just outside Charlotte, with a passion for smart home tech and tech news. The September 2026 Pixel Drop is officially rolling out. It brings a faster way to call and message contacts. The update is available to Pixel 6 and newer devices.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. How to change up Windows 11's Widgets panel--or disable it altogether Windows 11's default widgets display the weather, stock market prices, and more. You can customize them, or you can turn them off entirely. By default, Windows displays so-called widgets at the far left of the taskbar. These include, for example, current weather information or stock market prices.

This past March, Google introduced a chatbot inside of Maps as part of its overhaul of the software's navigation suite. The company pitched the feature, Ask Maps, as a way to give users a way to obtain information no traditional map can provide. Today, Google is expanding what Ask Maps can do, starting with the addition of new agentic capabilities. The next time you feel like ordering food, you can do so directly through Ask Maps. In a press briefing, Amanda Leicht-Moore, senior product director of Google Maps, demoed the feature by telling the chatbot she wanted recommendations for avocado toast and an oat milk latte near her home.

Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson explains why ads appear on smart device ads like refrigerators, Jeep and vehicle dashboards and Windows 11 lock screens, and how to turn them off.

Rogue Republican calls Trump presidency the'Epstein administration' amid criticism of Pam Bondi Mystery buyer of Epstein's Zorro Ranch is revealed to be Texas politician running for election Scandal engulfs America's'most hated podcast': Insiders torch Nick Viall... but save the ugliest whispers for his much-younger wife The tragic truth about what happened to the quintuplets who won America's hearts America's top 10 most generous billionaires are revealed Ritzy LA neighborhood where yoga moms are scandalized by den of iniquity... then go home to letters about what their brazen husbands are up to Ex-UFC star Cain Velasquez reunites with family as he's released after being jailed over attempted murder of man accused of sexually assaulting his son Meet'Donor Dan' who promises dads an international life of luxury... but only if they meet his incredibly high standards Disney's staggering nine-figure loss laid bare after its woke Snow White movie with Rachel Zegler flopped spectacularly Terrifying moment'drunk driver' is brought to his knees in high-speed chase with cops Meghan Markle cozies up to Prince Harry as they enjoy courtside date night at NBA All-Star Game over Valentine's Day weekend Harrison Ford, 83, and Calista Flockhart, 61, kiss on the tarmac as they arrive back in LA on Valentine's Day How the daughter of a Real Housewife laid bare an ugly truth at the heart of Hollywood... and exposed the depth of the damage it's done I'm a celebrity security guard here's where I'd never let my teenagers go for spring break David Harbour skips Stranger Things costar Maya Hawke's wedding as he goes on Valentine's date with mystery woman My wife thinks her surprise to me is every man's dream... but I'm disgusted by what she's offering to do: DEAR JANE I exposed the only US city erased from Google Maps... here's what this ultra-wealthy community doesn't want you to see Only 20% of people can solve this three-question IQ test backed by MIT... are you one of them? The world's shortest IQ test is just three questions long and can tell if you're smarter than 80 percent of the population. Called the Cognitive Reflection Test ( CRT), it has been around since 2005 but recently gained popularity on social media, with one TikTok user's breakdown of the three questions getting 14million views. The test was created by psychologist Shane Frederick, now at the Yale School of Management, to help predict whether people are likely to make common mistakes in thinking and decision-making. Since its creation, multiple studies over the last two decades have tested thousands of college students, finding that less than 20 percent can get all three right.

How to claim Verizon's $20 outage credit While Samsung's AI Vision and food tracking is a work in progress, it can still be genuinely useful. At their core, refrigerators are relatively simple devices. If you're the type of person to view every extra feature as a component that could potentially go wrong, basic iceboxes are probably the kind you go for. But for those on the other end of the spectrum, Samsung's latest Bespoke Refrigerators with AI inside have more bells and whistles than you might think possible -- including an optional 32-inch screen. The model we tested for this review came out in the second half of 2025 and will continue to be on sale throughout 2026. Hardware will remain the same, the only changes will come in the form of an OTA software update slated for later this year that will add support for Google Gemini, improved food recognition/labeling and more.

This project explores the development of an AI-enhanced operator assistant for UNICOS, CERN's UNified Industrial Control System. While powerful, UNICOS presents a number of challenges, including the cognitive burden of decoding widgets, manual effort required for root cause analysis, and difficulties maintainers face in tracing datapoint elements (DPEs) across a complex codebase. In situations where timely responses are critical, these challenges can increase cognitive load and slow down diagnostics. To address these issues, a multi-agent system was designed and implemented. The solution is supported by a modular architecture comprising a UNICOS-side extension written in CTRL code, a Python-based multi-agent system deployed on a virtual machine, and a vector database storing both operator documentation and widget animation code. Preliminary evaluations suggest that the system is capable of decoding widgets, performing root cause analysis by leveraging live device data and documentation, and tracing DPEs across a complex codebase. Together, these capabilities reduce the manual workload of operators and maintainers, enhance situational awareness in operations, and accelerate responses to alarms and anomalies. Beyond these immediate gains, this work highlights the potential of introducing multi-modal reasoning and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) into the domain of industrial control. Ultimately, this work represents more than a proof of concept: it provides a basis for advancing intelligent operator interfaces at CERN. By combining modular design, extensibility, and practical AI integration, this project not only alleviates current operator pain points but also points toward broader opportunities for assistive AI in accelerator operations.

Remember Apple's Vision Pro? That's the 3,499 mixed reality headset the company launched early in 2024 that failed to garner much public interest. Apple has steamed ahead with updates for the platform over the past year, and soon there will be a new version upgrade: visionOS 26. I got a chance to try out a few of the new capabilities, but two stuck out to me more than the others. First is the upgrade to Personas. That's the spatial avatar the headset creates based on your likeness using the onboard cameras.